May 06, 2005

Claim Your $1,000

In 1967, Philips yoked their wagon to the Future, launching a series of electronic and musique concrète releases called Prospective 21e Siècle. These records featured beautifulcovers — intricate constructions of polarized foil, transfixing in their kinetic light play. Naturally, being drawn to shiny stuff, hairy record dealers will happily eat their mothers' faces for the opportunity to septuple the price of anything reflective. In the loo at one FMU record fair, I walked into a dealer snorting lines of his own dandruff off Bernard Parmegiani's Violostries.

Anyway, Dutch label EARLabs kindly supplements their CD offerings with free downloadables. And there you can grab painstakingly declicked MP3s of the four-disc Electronic Panorama box. Some of it's dry; some of it's beautiful. But even if you hate tape music, you're losing money unless you download it. Just sayin.

Comments

Outta site! Just listened to 2 Daughters - Gloria / Kiss the Cloth and feel higher than a pre-internet, post-macrame, weekend wannabe anarchist tokin' esspressos and wheat grass in barefeet and Birkenstocks with a backpack full of tapes and event flyers.